Shesk keyboard tray mechanism

I didn’t want to use up the photo space on the project page explaining the keyboard mechanism, so I’ll do it here. This blog refers to my Shesk project here.

At first I thought I’d just get a drawer slide to allow the keyboard tray to be pulled out or stowed, but the clearance required would have made the unit too tall and make it look too boxy. I wanted to preserve the shelf look of the unit.

I tried to find an under-mount drawer slide—the expensive kind, but alas, I could not find one anywhere that was for a drawer only 12 inches deep. So I wracked my brain for a day, trying to invent something that would do the job well, and hopefully have a coolness factor to boot. Finially it dawned on me that I had seen and indeed made a prototype for an idea.

Always on the lookout for ideas, I spotted this expandable trivet in our grocery store. I actually have a prototype made because I want to make a few soon. (‘tis the season!)

Using this idea I built a similar system to hold the keyboard shelf using hardwood dowels. The following photos pretty much describe it.